Androgel Is the newest steroids to make its way to the drug market in the United States.This product is being made by Unimed Pharmaceuticals (a division of Solvay Pharmaceuticals), and was approved by the FDA for sale by prescription in February of 2000. As its name suggests, Androgel comes in the form of a transdermal gel that contains a 1% concentration of testosterone. It is being prescribed by doctors to restore normal androgen levels in men who are noticing a decline due to age, a job that it accomplishes both comfortably (no injections) and effectively (the product boasts a clinical success rate of 87%). It is quite ironic that this new testosterone-containing drug is being heralded by the media as a great achievement in the field of medicine and endocrinology, yet it contains one of the same steroids that has been vilified over and over again as a great danger to the public.
As mentioned, Androgel contains 1% testosterone by weight. It is packaged in both 2.5 gram and 5-gram packages,equating to a total per-application dose of 25mg or 50mg. The data available on Androgel suggests a transdermal bioavailability of approximately 10%. This means that each dose delivers 2.5mg or 5mg systemically (respectively). Although you might think a transdermal to be pretty slow acting, studies do show that testosterone levels begin to elevate 30 minutes after applying the gel to the body. Within 4 hours, most have dramatic elevations in serum androgen levels. Newly elevated levels of testosterone do tend to remain elevated for a full 24-hour period, which means that the drug only need be applied once per day. As you will see in the included graph, regular dosing will provide a relatively steady hormone balance over each 24-hour period.
In terms of bodybuilding, Androgel is not going to offer a whole lot. The highest dosed packet delivers only 5mg of testosterone to the body per day, which is not really that much when you are trying to pack on serious muscle mass. Were a person planning on getting a supraphysiological dose of testosterone with this drug, even say 25mg daily, it would require the regular daily use of 5 packets of the 5gram product. Try to use Androgel as a replacement for say testosterone cypionate or enanthate, as the sole drug in a cycle, and you would probably need even more. Combine this with the fact that injectable testosterone is just so much easier and cheaper to use, and we can see why Androgel doesn't circulate on the black market very often. At best you tend to find it being used by males who has been prescribed the drug by a doctor for Andropause treatment, stacked with other drugs that their doctors don't know they are using. Being a strong androgen, it is of course difficult to recommend Androgel to women. At best, a very low dose (maybe 1/4 to 1/2 of a 2.5gram packet) would be attempted, which would be taken for a very brief period (a few weeks).
Androgel® has also recently released a pump version of the product, called simply Androgel® Pump. It comes white plastic pump containers that are very reminiscent of soap dispensers. Androgel Pump is currently available in one formulation only. Each box will dispense 30 days worth of medication (at the starting 5g daily dosage). The box actually provides two pumps, each which provide 60 pumps of 1.25grams each.4 squirts per day will give the 5 gram dose. Over the past several years we have also seen many new testosterone gels have come to market, owing to the tremendous popularity of Androgel in the U.S. market. All of these products are of the same basic design as U.S. Androgel. Testim is a particularly popular brand in Europe, which is formulated as a comparable 1% gel of testosterone. It comes in single application foil packets of 2.5g and 5g of gel each, the same as Androgel®. Given the current lack of interest counterfeiters seem to be paying to these drugs, which are rarely used outside of legitimate channels due to their low delivered dose, all can probably be considered real should they be located on the black market.
Boldabol is probably going to find most favor among athletes who prefer oral medications instead of injections, and those who are searching for safer alternatives to hepatotoxic oral steroids like Winstrol, Dianabol, and Anadrol. Otherwise, cost will probably push most potential users back to injectable Equipoise, which will give much more bang for the buck. For those who do spend the money, this steroid will probably resemble oral Primobolan acetate very closely. With boldenone there is a small amount of estrogen conversion (not present in Primobolan), but it is probably not prominent enough for the average user to notice it. Therefore, I see both steroids behaving very similarly, with neither being a particularly strong androgen nor producing estrogenic side effects. As a poorly aromatizing steroid, Boldabol also should have decent versatility, fitting comfortable in bulking cycles, lean-mass-building cycles, and sometimes even cutting cycles as well (for some the small amount of estrogen may be a bit too much). Women whom have been afraid to experiment with Equipoise for fear of its slow rate of metabolic clearance may also find this steroid of interest, allowing experimentation with something that was previously off limits. In such cases, an oral daily dose of 25-50mg would perhaps be a good place to start.
Currently, oral boldenone acetate is only being produced by one manufacturer, British Dragon. It comes in the form of a square dark blue tablet, which bears the letters BD on one side and the number 50 (referring to the 50mg dosage) on the other. The tablets are scored, so as to be broken into 25mg halves fairly easily. One hundred tablets come packaged in a small white foil-lined pouch. Furthermore, each pouch carries a hologram sticker, which is included to deter counterfeiting. This sticker is not the only security check you should look for on this product, however. BD also recently started printing their logo on the back of each pouch, and has additionally been including a small silica gel pack inside of each pouch to preserve potency (also imprinted with the British Dragon logo). When shopping for this item on the black market, be sure to look for logos on both pouches as well as the hologram security sticker. At the time being, BD is the only company selling oral boldenone acetate. That may not remain the case for very long, however, especially if there is any success to be found in the marketplace with this interesting new drug.Time will tell how well it is received.